Sam Harris

“For me,” he added, “the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions.”

Addressing the idea that the Jews are God’s chosen people, Einstein wrote that “the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.”

http://www6.comcast.net/articles/news-world-europe/20080513/einstein.bible/

Here is another article about Einstein’s religous views referencing the same letter.

Belief in God a ‘product of human weaknesses’: Einstein letter

I’d like to think this will permanently silence those who keep using Einstein’s “God does not play dice with the universe” quote to try and assert he believed in something like the Judeo-Christian God, but that hope is probably forlorn.  The same sort of people assert that Thomas Paine and Chas. Darwin had deathbed conversions, and ignore any evidence which doesn’t conform with their beliefs.

Billy Shears - 14 May 2008 05:58 PM

I’d like to think this will permanently silence those who keep using Einstein’s “God does not play dice with the universe” quote to try and assert he believed in something like the Judeo-Christian God, but that hope is probably forlorn.  The same sort of people assert that Thomas Paine and Chas. Darwin had deathbed conversions, and ignore any evidence which doesn’t conform with their beliefs.

Exactly. Their “strength of faith” makes them impervious to correction.

Byron

Billy Shears - 14 May 2008 05:58 PM

Here is another article about Einstein’s religous views referencing the same letter.

Belief in God a ‘product of human weaknesses’: Einstein letter

I’d like to think this will permanently silence those who keep using Einstein’s “God does not play dice with the universe” quote to try and assert he believed in something like the Judeo-Christian God, but that hope is probably forlorn.  The same sort of people assert that Thomas Paine and Chas. Darwin had deathbed conversions, and ignore any evidence which doesn’t conform with their beliefs.

For the sake of accuracy, you might wanna note that Darwin was a theistic agnostic.  He just hated organized religion (Christianity specifically) and after his daughter died he didn’t believe God, if one exists, was necessarily benevolent.  He wasn’t convinced there was a God but coud find no way evidence that there wasn’t either.  He felt one couldn’t know for sure without divine revelation and he noted he never enjoyed such experiences.  So he essentially went with Pascal’s Wager and assumed there was some sort of God up there. 

You are right though, any of these intellectual leaders who tended to often be deists, pantheists, agnostics or otherwise get spun into being either evnagelical Christians or cold heated athiests depending on which action the religious right wishes to attach them to at any prticular time(or in Darwin’s case apply all responsibility on whether real or imagined).

[quote author=“tavishhill2003”]For the sake of accuracy, you might wanna note that Darwin was a theistic agnostic.  He just hated organized religion (Christianity specifically) and after his daughter died he didn’t believe God, if one exists, was necessarily benevolent.  He wasn’t convinced there was a God but coud find no way evidence that there wasn’t either.  He felt one couldn’t know for sure without divine revelation and he noted he never enjoyed such experiences.  So he essentially went with Pascal’s Wager and assumed there was some sort of God up there.

Thank you for that bit of information about Darwin’s views. I did not know anything about his thoughts on revelation. If there is a God, I agree with Darwin that revelation is the only way we will encounter that God.

Bruce Burleson - 16 May 2008 09:32 PM

Thank you for that bit of information about Darwin’s views. I did not know anything about his thoughts on revelation. If there is a God, I agree with Darwin that revelation is the only way we will encounter that God.

Pardon me for being so blunt to point this out to you Bruce, but you just let a Freudian slip slip.
“If there is a god”.

Doubt is a good thing my brother and there is no need to shy away from it.

Even though the odds are stacked against you, being a lawyer and a Texan , I’d be very surprised if you won’t take the red pill pretty soon.

The cookies are awaiting, not to mention some very hot, guilt- free sex with some godless floozies.

[quote author=“Sander”]Pardon me for being so blunt to point this out to you Bruce, but you just let a Freudian slip slip.
“If there is a god”.

Doubt is a good thing my brother and there is no need to shy away from it.

Even though the odds are stacked against you, being a lawyer and a Texan , I’d be very surprised if you won’t take the red pill pretty soon.

The cookies are awaiting, not to mention some very hot, guilt- free sex with some godless floozies.

Sorry to disappoint you, my friend, but I use the phrase “if there is a God” routinely on this forum, in an attempt to maintain some degree of objectivity. I don’t claim to know that there is a God, I simply believe that there is a God. I see nothing Freudian about it, but I will leave that to our resident psychologists.

And “if there is a God” - remember - he created the sex and the floozies, as well as the herbs that go into the cookies, the wine from the water, etc.

By the way, I have been tuning in to The Sundays more now that you mentioned them.  They had sort of passed under my radar screen. Nice group.

Einstein was perhaps the most brilliant human being to live…we will never know as Jews were systematically killed and repressed by Christianity until the 20th century and there may have been others.  Reading the many things he has to say about Physics far out weights his opinion on Religion.

LogicAndReason - 19 May 2008 01:42 AM

Einstein was perhaps the most brilliant human being to live…we will never know as Jews were systematically killed and repressed by Christianity until the 20th century and there may have been others.

If a tree falls in the forest…